(Philosophy of Mind): The Limits of Psychology

Requirements: Attendance to at least 80% of the classes. A take home
exam. Two 8 page papers.

Course Description

Psychology as an independent science only really became established
in the late nineteenth century, yet it has
become enormously influential in our society and has made great progress
in its theories. However, there are still
doubts about how much psychology can achieve in its understanding of human
life. In this class we will examine
the objectivity and limitations of psychology. We will take a historical
perspective, reading selections from
Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Hume, Kant and early theorists of scientific
psychology, including William James,
Wundt, Kraepelin,Freud, and Adolf Meyer. There are two main kinds
of objection to the possibility of a scientific
psychology: first, that an objective science can never capture the nature
of consciousness, and second, that the mind
is not like an object, but rather it is essentially bound up with meanings
and interpretation, and these are not part
of science. We will examine how these worries were dealt with historically,
and whether they still have
relevance in connection with today's psychology. Students will be
encouraged to chose a particular area in modern
empirical psychology and use it to pursue the issues that we deal.
Possible areas of study are: cognitive science,
theories of perception, neuropsychology, connectionist theory and parallel
distributive processes, social
psychology, development theory, and psychoanalytic theory.

This course covers issues in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, history of
philosophy, and philosophy of science.
Students will learn about most of the current approaches to the "mind-body"
problem.

5. Mental Images
Aquinas: That the Soul Never Thinks without an Image [BL Ch.22]
Hobbes: Of Imagination [BL Ch.23]
Descartes: from Meditation IV and from Objection IV and Reply [BL Ch.24]
Hume: Of the Ideas of the Memory and Imagination [BL Ch.25]
William James: Imagination [BL Ch.26]
Gilbert Ryle: "The Theory of Special Status Pictures" and "Imagining"
[BL Ch.29]
Daniel Dennett: The Nature of Images and the Introspective Trap [BL Ch.30]

6. Association of Ideas and Laws of Psychology
Locke: Of the Association of Ideas [BL Ch.36]
Hume: Of the Connection or Association of Ideas [BL Ch.37]
Mill: Of the Laws of the Mind [BL Ch.5]
Mill: The Principal Investigations of Psychology Characterized [BL Ch.38]
William James: The Elementary Law of Association [BL Ch.39]

7. Mind-Body Connections
Descartes: from Passions of the Soul [BL Ch.15]
Melebranche: from "The Union of Soul and Body" [BL Ch.16]
Leibniz: The Nature and Communication of Substances [BL Ch.17]
Kant: The Third Antinomy [BL Ch.18]